HK court rejects appeal of disqualified lawmaker

The Court of Appeal on Friday rejected the appeal of former lawmaker Leung Kwok-hung, who sought to be reinstated in the city’s Legislative Council after being disqualified in 2017.

In a judgment handed down the same day, three judges — Johnson Lam Man-hon, Aarif Barma and Jeremy Poon Shiuchor — said the defendant’s challenge over the lower court’s judgment had always been “doomed to fail”. This was because the court’s findings were “plainly right” rather than being “plainly wrong” — as claimed by Leung’s lawyer.

Leung, also known as “Long Hair”, and other three former lawmakers were unseated by the Court of First Instance for taking their oaths improperly during the swearing-in ceremony in October 2016. The court found they had deviated from the statutory wording of the oath. This amounted to an unlawful swearing-in, according to the National People’s Congress Standing Committee’s interpretation of the Basic Law.

The judges noted in their judgment that the NPCSC interpretation is binding on all the courts of Hong Kong and with retrospective effect from July 1, 1997, which also covered the period when Leung took the LegCo oath.

They added that the previous judgment of Yau Wai-ching was also binding in this case. Yau and another legislative candidate Sixtus Leung Chung-hang were stripped of their LegCo seats after they made a mockery of the LegCo oath while being sworn-in in 2016.

The Court of Final Appeal rejected the pair’s appeal to reclaim the seats in 2017.

Leung Kwok-hung argued that the validity of oaths should be judged by clerks and the president of LegCo. The judges wrote that the decision should only be made by the court.

Since the oath-taking process was recorded by transcript and videotape, they ruled that the judges were in a good position to view and assess Leung’s conduct.

Meanwhile, Leung also argued that as long as the lawmaker has finished the oath, he or she should not be liable for extra words said or behavior done.

The judges said such argument is “artificial” and “divorced from reality”, adding that these aspects also formed part of the oath-taking conduct.

Leung was required to pay all court costs. He also has debts of HK$2.98 million to the LegCo to cover operational expenses paid by the legislature from October 2016.

Leung said he would continue to reclaim his seat by lodging an appeal to the Court of Final Appeal.

Because Leung vows to continue to appeal, the LegCo seat of New Territories East constituency remains vacant. The seats of other disqualified members were all filled after by-elections.